Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Report: Islamic State On Brink of Financial Collapse

LONDON — The business model of Islamic State is failing, and the terror group will soon likely collapse financially, according to a detailed analysis of IS finances by the London-based International Center for the Study of Radicalization, and accounting group Ernst & Young.

Islamic State is often cited as the richest terrorist organization ever to have existed; but, the description is flawed, says report co-author professor Peter Neumann.

“IS isn’t just a terrorist organization, it is a quasi-state, which means it has territory, it has a population, and most of its income comes from that territory. It taxes people, it extracts oil, and it also loots and confiscates the property of people who’ve fled.”

11 comments:

Herein lies ISIS biggest problem. When ISIS first arose, it conquered and held territory with extreme speed and efficiency that exceeded by far anything the United states military is capable of doing and the US military is supposed to be the world's best. (An article of faith.)

When ISIS epitaph is ultimately written, it will likely read something like "here lies a political entity that was one of the best fighting forces the world has ever known however it was unable to adjust to behaving like a normal state once it conquered it's territory." Had ISIS been able to make this transition it likely would have not only survived but likely would have bee allowed to expand.

"When ISIS first arose, it conquered and held territory with extreme speed and efficiency that exceeded by far anything the United states military is capable of doing"

That is compleat and utter bullshit.

It took over a year form the time Raqqa fell until Mosul fell. Raqqa fell in March 2013. Mosul fell June 2014. The U.S. went through Afghanistan far faster.

the only reason the U.S. has lost ground is due to political constraints and geo-political concerns. When you allow Pakistani ISI & soldiers fly out Kunduz with Taliban and al Qaeda, it is kind of hard to win.

The U.S. deals with sanctuary cities at home and sanctuary states on the battle field.

The last sentence is spot on. A nation that won't take the basic steps to defend itself I'm not sure much can be said.

As for Afghanistan, the Us never really secured it. ISIS secured their territory they just never could adjust to behaving like a normal state. Furthermore since the US never really secured the battlefield there was little it could do to stop certain personnel from flying out even if it wanted to. As such, the claim is not bulls!t. ISIS is a very tough enemy. Refusing to learn this is going to make it tougher to defeat them.

The Gestapo was shooting soldiers in the street as the leadership took the ratline to South America.

ISIS is shooting jihadis, who want to flee also, both common jihadi and higher ups.

You cannot secure Afghanistan wit Pakistan allowing (making the Tribal territories a safe zone. Also Pakistan and Iran aided the Taliban. It remains a question as to how many if any factions of the Taliban the Pakistanis still support.

The Tribal lands were as safe for the Taliban as Cambodia and Laos were for the North Vietnamese.

The USSR was not able to conquer Afghanistan because Pakistan and Iran were safe zones for the Mujahedin. Also China, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran and the U.S. aided various factions of the Mujahedin.

Bposter please for the love of god stop your idiocracy... I'm positive you're either a Russian troll or part of this blog to stir discussion.. or you're a bit slow. ...no one can be so stupid to think Russia - which has a gdp the size of Italy (very small) - Is the most powerful country on earth. ..there's stupid and then there is bposter

Isis is a paid mercenary free for all made up of lonely wolves and bullies with big guns who are mad at the world or weren't given enough attention from mommy andadaddy when they were young kids lol. They will be remembered as barbarians of the worst flavour...

Very respectfully your analysis is superficial. To much emphasis is spent on GDP and not enough on debt, unfunded liabilities, or the actual capability of military forces to fight. To those not inclined to think seriously I may seem a bit "slow" because I actually take the time and make the effort to analyze.

By focusing on GDP, the least important measure of a country's actual war fighting capability, you indicate that you are the sort of person who lacks the willingness or ability analyze things in detail. Using statistics like a nation's GDP or how much money it spends on it's military is a bit like elevating "time of possession" in American football to the most important stat. While factors such as GDP and the size of the defense budget are not unimportant, they like the "time of possession" stat are the least important and should not receive the kind of attention they do. By using this stat you elevate a stat, that while not irrelevant to a position that is more important than it actually is.

For the record, I did not say that Russia is the most powerful county in the world as a definitive fact. What I have said correctly is we cannot "know" the outcome of a war without fighting it.

Now anyone who feels it worthwhile to inflame a Cold War that risks confrontation with a nuclear armed power over things like Ukraine and Eastern Europe just to name a few is truly "deranged." Now if this you, kindly go to Ukraine, Poland, or somewhere in Eastern Europe, strap on your gun, put on your military uniform and go to war with Russia!! Very kindly leave the American people out of it!!

About Me

I have been involved in numerous computer science projects since the 1980s, as well as developing numerous web projects since 1996.
These blogs are a summation of all the information that I read and catalog pertaining to the subjects that interest me.